Terry Pratchett

the Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

Consistent Pratchett – he’s a funny guy. Also some wonderful
characters along the way: I think this time my favourite would have to be
Sardines the tap dancing rat. Kevin in this case is our Captain Carrot/Brutha –
an untouchable innocent with a deeper insight than expected. There’s a
serviceable thriller plot as the sinister ‘Rat King’ is gradually revealed, and
the comedy, particularly in the first half of the book, makes the ride a
pleasure.

While it’s not quite as pervasive as the anti-religious
theme of Small Gods, Maurice
still packs a careful and deliberate anti-Narnia
message. Lewis’ allegory clearly and sympathetically represents central aspects
of Christian belief; here in stark contrast Pratchett makes pivotal scenes
about a prophet’s loss of faith in his scripture (revealed to be nothing but
fairy tales) and a deliberate fake resurrection which the bogus ‘messiah’ is
forced to go along with because the positive potential of faith is more useful
than the truth. We fall into some vague (but enormously popular) area where we
can enjoy prophets and even messiahs, granting some mystical, philosophical and
heroic credibility, but dismissing any nonsense about absolute truth or moral
imperatives. I don’t think Pratchett even begins to conceive of the contempt
he’s pouring out here.

So I find myself making an odd comparison to Finding Nemo,
a Disney movie I recently saw with my five year old. The techniques were
fabulous – the animation and colour, and a lot of the patter, particularly due
to Ellen Degeneres, worked. Why, in a movie largely aimed at young kids (with
enough second level stuff to keep the parents from nausea), do we have to have
some appalling Hollywood moral forced upon us as part of the otherwise enjoyable
package? Couldn’t my son just have enjoyed some funny scenes with fish without
having some brutal lesson that parents have to learn to let go[1]
- even if he picked up the message (unlikely), what on earth is he going to do
with it? We went to entertained, not taught – and if I’m going to teach him, my
first port of call isn’t the cheesy waffly unsound sentimentality of mainstream
American movies. Anyway, the comparison, obviously, is I’d like to pick up a
Pratchett, relish his humour and characterisations, without having a fairly
vicious attack on my faith along the way. Can’t he just have some fun with
fairy tales without getting nastily didactic about Christianity? Still, I’ve
heard the same criticism launched by non-Christians about the Narnia series,
“Can’t we just have an enjoyable kids’ fantasy without the gospel overtones?”
To which I’d reply, “But without them you miss the profundity of the whole
book,” and I’m sure many non-believing Pratchett fans would feel the same way
if we did away with the allegory in Maurice.

Moreover, to be fair he’s so prolific there are doubtless at
least a dozen of his books that don’t knock Jesus, several probably having been
written in between Small Gods and Maurice – just unfortunate that the couple I’ve read
since I’ve been writing reviews (and in the last few months) do.

October 2003

[1] And this
even if the wife/mother has been killed. What on earth is it with Disney that
they have to kill mothers or fathers in front of little kids?! Is it somewhere
in Disney’s will that they can’t release a movie (Lion King, Bambi, Ice Age,
Finding Nemo … ) without a family death? This is the strangest thing that would
be odd to include in any kids movie – let along several. They won’t have a
swear word, but they do go domestic homicide.